The present invention relates to copy production machines having collation apparatus and particularly into a control aspect of a collator in a copy production machine having document feeding means.
Copy production machines, including convenience copiers, often have a semiautomatic document feed (SADF) or an automatic document feed (ADF) which semi-automatically or automatically supplies original documents to be copied to an imaging area. A copy production portion (CPP) responds to the image presented by the original document in the imaging position to produce copies. The copies often can be supplied to a simple exit tray or to an automatic collation apparatus. In the latter, sets of documents can be conveniently reproduced.
It is also highly desirable that the copy production rate be maximized under certain conditions; i.e., reduce the total time required to make a set of documents. In this regard, most collators have a preferred direction of collation. That is, for jam control purposes and jam avoidance it is desired that the collator operates from a so-called home position and collate when the relative movement is away from the home position. Upon completion of one collating run the collator moves back to the home position in preparation of the next run. While reliable operation may be enhanced by this type of function, throughput is penalized in that the copy production machine must wait for the collator to reset to the home position.
Collators come in various forms and shapes. For example, a travelling vane copy distributor may travel along an open side of a stack of collator bins and supply a copy to the bins in accordance with a sequence or a program of instructions. Alternatively, a document distributor may be fixed so that a stack of movable bins will move in front of the distributor for receiving the copies to be collated. In either event, collators of this type have a home position and a preferred direction of collation; i.e., a relative movement between the copy distributor and the collator bins.